Spatiotemporal instabilities in nonlinear Kerr media in the presence of arbitrary higher-order dispersions

Spatiotemporal instabilities in nonlinear Kerr media with arbitrary higher-order dispersions are studied by use of standard linear-stability analysis. A generic expression for instability growth rate that unifies and expands on previous results for temporal, spatial, and spatiotemporal instabilities is obtained. It is shown that all odd-order dispersions contribute nothing to instability, whereas all even-order dispersions not only affect the conventional instability regions but may also lead to the appearance of new instability regions. The role of fourth-order dispersion in spatiotemporal instabilities is studied exemplificatively to demonstrate the generic results. Numerical simulations confirm the obtained analytic results. (C) 2002 Optical Society of America.

Elimination of zero-order diffraction in digital holography

A simple method to suppress the zero-order diffraction in the reconstructed image of digital holography is presented. In this method, the Laplacian of a detected hologram is used instead of the hologram itself for numerical reconstruction by computing the discrete Fresnel integral. This method can significantly improve the image quality and give better resolution and higher accuracy of the reconstructed image. The main advantages of this method are its simplicity in experimental requirements and convenience in data processing. (C) 2002 Society of Photo-optical Instrumentation Engineers.

Pure-phase plates for super-Gaussian focal-plane irradiance profile generations of extremely high order

A set of recursive formulas for diffractive optical plates design is described. The pure-phase plates simulated by this method homogeneously concentrate more than 96% of the incident laser energy in the desired focal-plane region. The intensity focal-plane profile fits a lath-order super-Gaussian function and has a nearly perfect flat top. Its fit to the required profile measured in the mean square error is 3.576 x 10(-3). (C) 1996 Optical Society of America

Non-resonant third-order non-linear optical properties of amorphous GeSe2 film

The real and imaginary parts of third-order susceptibility of amorphous GeSe2 film were measured by the method of the femtosecond optical heterodyne detection of optical Kerr effect at 805 nm with the 80 fs ultra fast pulses. The results indicated that the values of real and imaginary parts were 8.8 x 10(-12) esu and -3.0 x 10(-12) esu, respectively. An amorphous GeSe2 film also showed a very fast response within 200 fs. The ultra fast response and large third-order non-linearity are attributed to the ultra fast distortion of the electron orbits surrounding the average positions of the nucleus of Ge and Se atoms. (c) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Super-resolution scanning laser microscopy with a third-order optical nonlinear thin film

In a configuration of optical far-field scanning microscopy, super-resolution achieved by inserting a third-order optical nonlinear thin film is demonstrated and analyzed in terms of the frequency response function. Without the thin film the microscopy is diffraction limited; thus, subwavelength features cannot be resolved. With the nonlinear thin film inserted, the resolution is dramatically improved and thus the microscopy resolves features significantly smaller than the smallest spacing allowed by the diffraction limit. A theoretical model is established and the device is analyzed for the frequency response function. The results show that the frequency response function exceeds the cutoff spatial frequency of the microscopy defined by the laser wavelength and the numerical aperture of the convergent lens. The main contribution to the improvement of the cutoff spatial frequency is from the phase change induced by the complex transmission of the nonlinear thin film. Experimental results are presented and are shown to be consistent with the results of theoretical simulations.

Propagation properties of off-axis Hermite-cosh-Gaussian beam combinations through a first-order optical system

Based on the Collins integral formula, the analytic expressions of propagation of the coherent and the incoherent off-axis Hermite-cosh-Gaussian (HChG) beam combinations with rectangular symmetry passing through a paraxial first-order optical system are derived, and corresponding numerical examples are given and analysed. The resulting beam quality is discussed in terms of power in the bucket (PIB). The study suggests that the resulting beam cannot keep the initial intensity shape during the propagation and the beam quality for coherent mode is not always better than that for incoherent mode. Reviewing the numerical simulations of Gaussian, Hermite-Gaussian (HG) and cosh Gaussian (ChG) beam combinations indicates that the Hermite polynomial exerts a chief influence on the irradiance profile of composite beam and far field power concentration.